we're hardest on those we love - Famous Dave's

I so want Famous Dave's to be better.  It's pretty good, but I want it to be better.  You may recall in my latest review the inconsistency of the brisket.  I talked with a friend who just had a similar experience with their ribs.  Fell in love with them on the first visit, ordered them again on a second trip and got the super fatty end cut.  Now he doesn't know what to think.  Has their rapid expansion come at the expense of quality control?  Are their margins such that they have to improve yields by using inferior cuts of meat?  Have they changed suppliers?  Who has the final say on the trimming?  Shift manager?  Kitchen manager?  General manager?  Is there sufficient training for these roles?  Clearly something is up here (using my sample size of n=2).  Irrefutable.

And for what it's worth have you noticed that the crowds aren't what they used to be?  At my last visit there was no wait at all, and we had great seating in the bar.  Very unusual.  A thought occurred to me as Richard the Cornhusker and I sat there: has Dave lost his mojo?

The people sitting behind us were having a conversation about Nordy's BBQ, another big chain.  The adults were arguing that they didn't think it was very good.  The 20-something they were talking to took a very pro-Nordy's position.  "A lot of people say Nordy's isn't very good," declared Mr. Universal Knowledge, "but they just don't know good BBQ."

Wrong.  My first visit to Nordy's was disastrous.  It actually smelled like manure.  So bad that I figured it had to be an anomaly and I would give them a second chance.  The second chance confirmed the first -- boiled meat covered in ketchup, with unmistakable aroma of 2-day old manure.  For the sake of my readers I will force myself to visit Nordy's a third time for a full review, accompanied of course by trained toxicologists and gastro-interologists.  But what's interesting here is that this discussion was taking place at Famous Dave's.  If Dave can't get his quality control in line then it won't be long until more people get tired of the awful meat trimming and we can have a serious discussion that I am pre-titling "Nordy's versus Famous Dave's:  a race to the BBQ bottom."